The present invention relates to a user interface communications usage management of multiple networked devices in a telecommunications network, and more particularly to cellular telephone air time management establishing criteria for allowing, forbidding, and limiting communications access with accounts for managing usage minutes.
Cellular telephones can be programmed to only originate calls to a fixed table of numbers, and telephones can be set up to only receive calls. However, current cellular telephones do allow the owner to lock out undesired services, and cellular telephone protocols have not been advanced for allowing a telephone to be set up for restricted access to a first list of numbers, and unlimited access to a second list of numbers, where the list is remotely determined by the owner/account manager.
While some internet service providers are providing free computers and internet service to consumers, the user must complete a personal and detailed survey, and the computer is configured with a banner which displays advertising targeted to the user. The user is required to use the computer for a specified number of hours per week. Similar services are not known for cellular communications, especially where the user is required to acknowledge the advertisement. Additionally, commoditization of usage minutes may be desirable to facilitate the exchange of usage minutes between users. Further, trading air time minutes for services or merchandise is somewhat similar to trading airline miles for services or merchandise.
Advanced air time management provides a feature that may be required as the number of cellular telephones per household increases. The feature can be tied to a business or family management system which can provide a user interface to allow the account manager to set up restriction on all his/her family telephones. An internet services provider (ISP) then may advantageously spawn system maintenance short message service (SMS) traffic to update the telephones, and record acknowledgments when the telephones are all recorded. The SMS messaging allows for sending and receiving short alphanumeric messages between mobile telephones. It would be advantageous to provide several related features to the ISP and the users, such as (1) additional features to market the subscriber/infrastructure equipment; (2) air time for advertising opens up the operator to pull in another revenue stream, which enables the operator to hook lower income individuals (like college students who will not always be low income) on their network; and (3) trading air time for acknowledged advertising allows advertisers to get feedback that their advertising dollars are working for them. Thus, the ISP and users will be allowed to transfer air time minutes from one account to another in view of defined business and use regulation incentives.
The time is rapidly approaching when all members of a family will have their own personal communication device. As this happens, the family bill payer will need new methods to regulate the usage of these communication devices. A method will be needed for easily restricting and limiting the usage for different members of a family (or group). The method really involved treating air time as a form of money. To this end, a communications system could be provided over a telecommunications network managed by a system operation in which multiple networked devices used by several users may purchase quantities of redeemable units for services and the like. Through the use of such redeemable units, the users may exchange units, and commercial or recreational activities may thus be facilitated through the system operator.
Advantageously, the foregoing revolves around the central notion of using air time as a form of currency units. A method of managing air time is thus desirable for a group or family, including individualized bins describing Restricted, Unrestricted, and Forbidden usage of each telephone in the group, where the restriction information is stored in the telephone, in the switch, or by the ISP. System maintenance may employ SMS messages from the xe2x80x9cAccount Managerxe2x80x9d to permanently or temporarily change bin descriptions. Users may thus use SMS messaging to transfer air time to another user.
Methods are desired for sending advertisements to a user, recording an acknowledgment, and sending the acknowledgment back to the operator. This may be facilitated by having the telephone examine the beginning of all received SMS traffic for coded headers identifying the message as a command for the telephone. The SMS traffic may then modify the Family Air Time parameters with or without user acknowledgment, or operator intervention.